Robert Wechsler's blog

ALEC has gone local. No, not Alec Baldwin. ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization that for the last few years has been drafting conservative legislation for state legislatures. According to...

When it comes to local lobbying oversight, cities are falling like flies. At least in Canada.

According to an article yesterday on the Vancouver, BC Metro News website, the city council voted unanimously to look into establishing a lobbying registry and hiring an independent ombuds, apparently to run the registry and more. This follows the vote to...

It amazes me how many ways elected officials misuse charitable organizations to engage in ethical misconduct, especially to get around gift rules. One would think that charities would be sufficiently sacrosanct. But instead they are frequently used as an indirect form of pay to play, and they have played a major role in getting around campaign finance limitations.

The form of misuse of charitable organizations that this post will look at involves a company that wants to get around...

I've written several posts about individuals who have created fiefdoms (a D.A., a housing authority director, a city pension board attorney, the...

According to an article yesterday on the Baltimore Brew website, a year ago Baltimore's mayor officiated at a wedding between two individuals who lobby the city government. In Las Vegas, no less.

Mayors, judges and, sometimes, other local government officials often officiate at weddings. Some ethics codes have a special...

The principal value of lobbying, according to both lobbyists and government officials, is the expert information lobbyists provide. The view is often stated that, with the resources they have, government officials could not effectively do their job without the expertise they obtain from lobbyists.

The public, however, has no idea how this information is used. When it turns out that a lobbyist effectively wrote a bill, argument, letter, or speech that an official presents as his own...